It’s past midnight in Paris and I’ve just finished watching the great debate - the long-awaited face-off between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal.

My verdict? Bizarrely boring; bizarrely parochial - and probably a narrow victory for Sarkozy.

I know France is a serious country - but letting the debate run for two and a half hours seemed to be a bit of a punishment for even the most serious-minded of citizens. Worse, despite the acres of time available to them, they barely discussed some of the most serious issues facing France. There was no discussion  - and I mean none - of the fact that in 2005 France faced over three weeks of nightly riots. You might have thought that rated a mention. And in 150 minutes of debate, they spent barely 15 minutes discussing the outside world.

Instead, the two candidates got lost in the finer details of social and economic policy. I know that France faces serious economic problems. And they had a good and fairly clear discussion of the economics of the 35-hour-week. (I thought Sarkozy scored heavily there - but then I agree with him that it’s a mad law) But was it really necessary to spend quite so much time on issues like civil-service reform, nuclear power and the school curriculum - while barely discussing the social problems of France’s  suburbs, or the collapse of France’s European policy?

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Yesterday evening I went to see Ségolène Royal give a speech in Paris. It was a hot May Day afernoon – the perfect moment to see the Socialist Party candidate start her final assault on the presidency.

I saw Nicolas Sarkozy - Ségolène’s rival – speak a couple of weeks ago. But that was before a small audience in a five-star hotel in a smart part of Paris. Ségolène’s event was very different – a huge rally and pop concert in a stadium in the 13th arrondissement (not very smart). I took a taxi to the stadium with John Thornhill, the FT’s Europe editor. The roads were closed off and we had to walk the last few blocks. John remarked - slightly  nervously I thought – "I don’t really know this part of Paris."

When we arrived at the stadium, the concert was still going on, the gates were barred and there were huge crowds milling around outside. Eventually I elbowed my way up to a gate with a big sign on it saying "Press". Normally in France, brandishing a press card has a magical – almost embarrassing – effect. (It’s particularly effective for queue-jumping at museums.) But not this time. The mixture of riot police and Socialist Party organisers were unimpressed. Ségolène wasn’t due on stage for 45 minutes. But they weren’t letting anyone else in.

Annoyed by this, I decided to walk around the stadium and look for a gap in the security. About 100 yards further on, I came across some people – mainly young blacks and Arabs – who had found a way into the stadium. They had turned a crash barrier on its side and were using it as a makeshift ladder, allowing them to clamber up to the top of the metal fence surrounding the stadium– and then leap down onto the other side. I climbed up myself and took a look.

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What is the answer to the rise of fundamentalism across the Muslim world? For years Europeans and Americans thought they knew the antidote: secular democracy.

In the Islamic world, Turkey has been the shining example. Not only is the country a member of Nato; it has also been held up as proof that a country can be simultaneously Muslim, prosperous, secular and democratic. So what are we to make of events in Turkey now? Secularists have demonstrated in huge numbers because they are terrified by the prospect of the indirect election of a mildly Islamist president, and the army has hinted that it may stage a coup to protect the secular character of the state. Secularism and democracy seem to be at war.

The paradoxes do not stop there. American neo-conservatives hoped that the invasion of Iraq would create a new bulwark of pro-western democracy in the Islamic world. But while the US has failed in this aim, it has managed to inflict grave damage on its strategic relationship with its most important partner in the Muslim world: Turkey.

The remainder of Gideon’s weekly column can be read here (FT.com subscription required).